A nonprofit trying to turn a rescued space shuttle mockup into a Central Minnesota tourist attraction now says it wants to suspend the 25-ton fuselage inside a custom-built dome standing 175 feet tall and 300 feet wide, its surface wrapped in LED panels designed to make the structure visible for miles. Inspiration Space Port has not announced a location, an opening date, or a cost estimate for the project, but organizers say the shift from a static display to an immersive, light-wrapped attraction reflects a much bigger ambition than simply parking a spacecraft mockup in a field.
According to KNSI, founder Jason Bernick said the group changed course from an earlier plan to display the shuttle, opting instead for visitor pathways that run beneath, around and through the vehicle. The mockup, named Inspiration, was never flown in space — it began life in 1972 as a full-scale plastic-and-wood engineering model that North American Rockwell built at its Downey, California facility to help sell NASA and Congress on the entire Space Shuttle program, according to collectSPACE. Engineers later used the mockup to fit-check hydraulic systems and wiring before it sat in storage for decades.
From Near-Scrapyard to St. Cloud
Bernick, who serves as Director of Corporate Affairs at the fifth-generation, Waite Park-based beverage distributor Bernick's, learned in April 2024 that the mockup faced being scrapped. He personally paid to move it, and later formed the nonprofit that took ownership of the piece that same year, per the KNSI report. St. Cloud native Dr. Felicity-John Pederson, founder of light-communication company LVX System and an Apollo High School graduate, had originally acquired the mockup from Kennedy Space Center to save it from destruction after using it for research, according to MPR News. Pederson had initially envisioned displaying the orbiter next to a proposed children's museum in downtown St. Cloud.
Moving the 25-ton fuselage was its own logistical undertaking. The piece traveled by truck from Kennedy Space Center's shuttle landing facility on a week-long trip that required law enforcement escorts from state troopers across seven states — Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota — before arriving in St. Cloud in June 2024, per a post cited from Inspiration Space Port's Facebook page. Specialized haulers JJ Transport and Ascent Specialized moved the components across state lines, and eight additional truckloads of shuttle parts arrived and went into storage around the St. Cloud area that same summer.
Political Backing, Unresolved Logisticss
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and State Senator Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, publicly promoted the shuttle's arrival in early 2024, framing it as a major educational opportunity for Minnesota youth, MPR News reported. Putnam had advocated for placing the attraction on a municipal parking lot site in downtown St. Cloud. Even with that political support, Inspiration Space Port leadership said in May 2025 that full reassembly and restoration of the 122-foot mockup could not begin until a permanent real estate deal was finalized, according to KNSI's earlier reporting. That site question remains open more than a year later.
The nonprofit operates under the legal name ISP.EARTH and is based in Rice, Minnesota, according to tax records reviewed by ProPublica. As an IRS-approved 501(c)(3), the entity formally owns the mockup and is tasked with managing land acquisition, fundraising and site development — the pieces still standing between the current stored-parts phase and an actual opening.
Flight Simulators and a Traveling Shuttle Bus
Project architect and creative director Cliff Dew, who is also chief executive officer of Jumping Frog Entertainment, a themed entertainment studio that designs immersive, location-based experiences, is leading the design work to transition the shuttle from a static museum piece into a hands-on attraction, the station's report notes. Planned features include flight simulators, interactive displays, hands-on science exhibits, and visitor pathways that wind beneath, around and through the shuttle itself.
Organizers also plan a mobile exhibit called the Shuttle Bus Ambassador, which would include its own space shuttle simulator and travel to schools, libraries, community centers and malls around Minnesota ahead of any permanent opening. The project is described as still in the planning stage, with organizers focused on site evaluation, sponsorships, partnerships and educational collaborations. Inspiration Space Port says it will release more details in the coming months, but has not announced a location, opening date, or cost estimate.
A Rare Attraction for the Region
Outside of California, Florida, Virginia and New York — home to the flown NASA orbiters Endeavour, Atlantis, Discovery and Enterprise — the Upper Midwest currently has no full-scale space shuttle artifacts or orbiter exhibits, per collectSPACE. Those flown vehicles are housed permanently at coastal national museums and NASA visitor complexes, making a dome-enclosed mockup in Central Minnesota a geographic outlier for space-themed tourism.
The shuttle project arrives as St. Cloud continues investing in downtown draws. City leaders secured $6.4 million in state bonding in August to redevelop 5th Avenue South and build a Mississippi riverfront park connecting SCSU to downtown, part of a broader push to draw regional foot traffic with cultural and educational anchors. Whether the glowing shuttle dome becomes the next piece of that puzzle still depends on land deals and funding that have yet to be announced.
